Regulars (All)

Seeds of native plants in the temperate region require chilling, called stratification, before they can germinate and grow seedlings. The acorn of the mighty oak must be stratified before it can germinate in the spring. But don’t go placing acorns in the freezer before planting.
In nature’s cycle, acorns fall to the ground in the fall, while the ground is still warm and moist. On the ground, some are covered with leaves; some are gathered and buried by squirrels. Soon after landing, acorns begin to absorb moisture. Slowly, the ground cools. As soon as soil temperatures drop to near 45 degrees, stratification begins. When soil temperatures drop below freezing, stratification stops. As temperatures rise above freezing, stratification continues. Nature’s alternate freezing and thawing enhances germination.
Each plant species has its own length of time for stratification. In species that grow over a wide range of latitudes, stratification periods can vary considerably. For instance, the red maple tree has a growing range from ­Quebec to northern Florida.
The stratification period for seeds taken from trees native to Quebec is shorter than for seeds from trees native to northern Florida. This is because the ground freezes earlier and stays frozen longer in Quebec than in northern Florida. In northern Florida the soil seldom freezes hard, but it is cold enough that seeds germinating in early spring would be killed by frost. This phenomenon was verified when red maple seeds harvested from trees growing near Quebec were planted in northern Florida and seeds harvested from red maples originating in northern Florida were sown in soil near Quebec. The Quebec seedlings germinated in the middle of Florida’s winter and were killed by frost, while the seeds from Florida never germinated in Quebec.
To artificially stratify seeds from our region, mix them with moist sand blended with some peat moss and allow them to absorb moisture for at least two weeks. Then refrigerate for another six to eight weeks before sowing. This is more or less following the normal daily temperature cycle.
The lazy way of germinating native plant seeds is to sow them in the fall in a well-prepared soil with at least three percent organic matter. Cover the seedbed with a board to prevent winter weeds from growing. The seeds will undergo natural stratification.
In the spring, at about the time the buds of trees are starting to show color, remove the board covering the seed bed and watch for seedlings to emerge.

Ask Dr. Gouin your questions at DR.FRGouin@gmail.com. Please include your name and address.

Thursday evening the waxing gibbous moon stands above the constellation Orion, appearing as if it were the hunter’s head in profile. The next night it is above and to the left of Betelgeuese, Orion’s shoulder, and the two form a nice line with Rigel, the hunter’s foot. Saturday Luna is below the twins of Gemini, Castor and Pollux, and above Procyon, the lead star in the constellation Canis Minor, the Little Dog. Off to the east is brilliant Jupiter. Sunday the moon rests in the middle of a triangle formed by Pollux, Procyon and Jupiter. Come Monday, Luna is just five degrees south of Jupiter. Tuesday the moon is to the upper right of Regulus, with Jupiter well above them both. Then on Wednesday, the moon, Jupiter and Regulus form a loose triangle.
While the moon is our only natural satellite, countless manmade satellites orbit the earth. You’ve likely seen some and presumed they were airliners passing overhead in the night. The International Space Station, however, stands out from the pack, shining brighter than except the sun and moon and zipping across the sky like a shooting star.
This past week, on February 21 and 25, astronauts aboard the ISS completed two of three scheduled space walks to prepare it for future commercial dockings. The third is planned for Sunday, March 1.
The ISS was originally designed to receive docking space shuttles, which were secured alongside a berthing port using the station’s robotic arm. Unmanned cargo vessels and Russian Soyuz rockets (the only means of sending and retrieving astronauts to and from the station now that the shuttles have been retired) continue to use this system.
However, manned commercial vessels, set to begin arrival to the ISS in 2017, will maneuver into a docking port within the station itself — something akin to what we’ve seen in movies and television for decades.
The current system is a daunting and time-consuming process, both arriving and departing. The new system will allow a quick evacuation of crewmembers from the station in the event of an emergency.
While we won’t be able to see the ISS during the space walk, it routinely flies overhead. For dates and times, go to http://spotthestation.nasa.gov.

Don’t wait for April to begin tackle or boat preparations because by then it will be too late. This weekend if not today, check on your fishing gear. Examine your rods, inspect your reels, check out your boat equipment.
Which reels need to be re-spooled? Which need maintenance? Turn your reel handles with pressure on the spool. Are your drags smooth? Do they freeze or hesitate before they release? The drag washers may need to be cleaned and repacked with grease.
Check your reel handles. Do they turn smoothly? Are the bushings and bearings clean, or are they corroded and rough? Check the free spool lever. Does the reel spool disengage freely? Does it re-engage promptly? This one is a show-stopper. If you can’t put your reel back in gear, you will be unable to land your fish, even retrieve your line.
If your reels need any kind of maintenance, now is the time to send them off. Currently, you can expect them to be repaired or serviced within one or two weeks. But if you wait until just before opening day, you might not get them back for a month or more.
Closely inspect your rod guides. A cracked guide ring may be difficult to see, but it will shred your line the first time a good fish puts some pressure on your tackle. Rod guides that show corrosion in a joint area or have been bent should be replaced. They can and will collapse at the first inopportune moment. Repairs and replacements can be accomplished promptly now as rod craftsmen are still in a slow period.
Look over your hooks, sinkers and lures. Are your bucktails and parachutes still in good condition, or are the hair and skirts twisted and deformed from being put up carelessly? If they are, they won’t track or work properly in the water. Now is the time to correct that. Put them in hot water for a soak, then lay them out on a towel to dry.
Replace any rusted hooks. A rusty hook requires three or four times the force as a new hook to penetrate a fish’s mouth — more if the fish is a big one. File off the rust and sharpen the points on any hooks that can’t be replaced. Wipe them down with WD-40 so they won’t re-rust before the season opens.
Check out all your boat gear. Are your flares and fire extinguishers still operational and with valid dates? Are all of your life preservers still functional, and do you have enough of them? Don’t be that guy on opening day going from store to store trying to find flares, whistles, throwable floatation devices or an extra PFD for a last-minute guest. You can get a Natural Resources Police citation and be ordered off the water if any of these are missing.
Check your paperwork. Do you have your boat registration certificate, and is it current? It’s required when you’re on the water. Now is a good time to get your new fishing license for yourself or for the boat.
Put the license sticker on your bow promptly and be sure to keep the paperwork on-board; that’s also required now by Natural Resources Police officers, though it is not well advertised. Check your hull boat numbers and registration stickers. They can disappear over a nasty winter or may have been stripped off by hard running the previous season. That could mean a ticket on opening day.
Run a power and cell check on your boat battery; batteries like to go dead over winter and can be difficult, time-consuming and expensive to replace at 5am opening day. Perform an on-site review of all your boat’s electrical circuits. Are all your navigation lights operating and if they’re not, is it the bulb, the wiring or the switch?
Are your fish finder and GPS fully functional? Does your marine radio still work? Is your bilge pump operating properly? Failure of any of these devices can turn opening day into an experience in frustration or worse.
Get these jobs done now, and you can relax, confident in the knowledge that all you need to do on opening day is wake up on time and have luck in your corner.

Did you know that in many plants, flowering — and bulbing — is based on the number of hours of exposure to light?
This fact of plant biology explains many mysteries. Understand it, and you’ll be a smarter and more successful gardener.
If you expose a chrysanthemum or poinsettia to more than 11 hours of light each day, it will never flower. The triggering mechanism that forces these species into flowering is exposure to no more than 10 hours of light. Those conditions of light are called short days and long nights. Interrupting their 14-hour night with even a flash of light can prevent flowering.
During long daylight hours, greenhouse growers cover these species with shade cloths to force them to flower out of season. That’s why chrysanthemums are available throughout the year.
Nature’s cycle of short days and long nights begins in late summer. This natural cycle enables us to enjoy fall mums and greenhouse growers to grow poinsettias without having to shade them.
In the fall, some chrysanthemums flower earlier than others. This range is possible because breeders have developed cultivars with different maturing periods. Chrysanthemums’ short-day classification further divides into six-week, eight-week, 10-week and 12-week cultivars. These numbers refer to the number of weeks from the time a plant is exposed to 10 or fewer hours of light until the flower buds show color. By selecting different varieties, you can have chrysanthemums flowering in your garden for many weeks.
Short-day woody plants include azaleas, rhododendrons, dogwoods, lilacs, spring-flowering roses and viburnums, to name a few. The flower buds on these plants are produced late summer and early fall for flowering in the spring.
Long-day plants flower all summer long. This includes bedding plants and woody ornamentals such as fuchsia, crape myrtle, hybrid-T and floribunda roses, some hydrangea and hibiscus, among others. When daylight hours fall under 10, the plants remain in a vegetative state of growth.
Many varieties of onions are also classified as long- or short-day varieties. For long-day onions to form bulbs, they must be planted in the spring and form bulbs when the days are long. Short-day onions — as well as garlic — are planted in the fall and form bulbs when daylight hours are short. Plant short-day onions in the spring, and you’ll only get green onions.

Ask Dr. Gouin your questions at DR.FRGouin@gmail.com. Please include your name and address.

Working at sports stores has given me a long-term look at a critical and often overlooked item of tackle: monofilament fishing line. Taking your line for granted can lead to very unfortunate results.
Monofilament fishing line was developed more than 75 years ago by DuPont Chemical Company as a spin-off of nylon, the first synthetic plastic. Those early efforts produced stiff, springy lines that had too much memory, tangled easily and were brittle.
Braided lines made of linen (from the flax plant) or cotton were the overwhelming choice of anglers. These braids were strong for their diameter, supple and relatively easy to handle with the revolving spool reels used by most fishers of that period.
Braided natural fiber fishing lines continued to hold sway over anglers for the next 20 years. Those lines did, however, have two distinct drawbacks: They tended to deteriorate if not dried properly, and they were visible to the fish.
Eventually chemists solved all the technical problems with monofilament. In 1959, DuPont introduced Stren, a soft, pliable fishing line with excellent strength and very low visibility in the water. Over the same period, spinning reels advanced in popularity. The new monofilament line was embraced by spin anglers as the perfect application for their tackle.
DuPont’s product was so successful that it was copied by many other manufacturers. Monofilament has been continually improved. It is superb fishing line: inexpensive, with great strength to diameter and with low visibility in the water.
Its one drawback: It does not last forever.
The ultraviolet rays from sunshine, fluorescent lighting and more will eventually break down the structure of monofilament, causing it to fail under stress. Knot strength is the first thing to suffer, while the line itself appears unchanged.
If monofilament is unused and stored in a cool, dark environment it will last a few years. Outside in sunlight or inside exposed to the light of fluorescent bulbs and tubes, its life expectancy is limited. Manufacturers recommend replacing line every season.
The life of line gets still more complicated. Because manufacturers do not date their products’ creation, consumers have no way of knowing the age of a newly purchased spool of monofilament. Nor do we know under what conditions that line was stored.
Most tackle shops routinely rotate the inventory, so monofilament lines are constantly refreshed by newly manufactured supplies. But the buyer has to beware. A spool of line that has remained in a store’s inventory for long periods, especially if exposed to UV light, will likely fail under stress. The longer it has been retained, the more likely it is to break down.
Purchase your line from reputable sporting goods retailers that frequently turn over their inventory. Higher quality lines are going to resist UV deterioration far longer than less expensive lines.
One simple test of monofilament’s integrity is to tie an overhand knot in the line and give it a good strong tug. The overhand knot is not recommended for fishing because it cuts into itself. Fresh lines with this knot in them will still be difficult to break. However, monofilament compromised by age or UV exposure will fail at a mere fraction of its rated strength.
Your monofilament fishing line is probably the least expensive component of all of your tackle. But it is the single most important link between you and your fish. Respect and replace it frequently.
When not in use, store your tackle with reel covers that shield the line from UV rays. Or keep your tackle in a cool, dark room. Remember also that today’s energy-efficient compact-fluorescent bulbs produce UV rays.

An ever-so-thin sliver of moon appears low in the west at evening twilight Thursday briefly before sinking beneath the horizon. The Evening Star Venus blazes above and to the moon’s left, with much fainter Mars just above Venus.
Sunset Friday finds the two-day-old crescent moon within two degrees of Venus and Mars, all so close they easily fit within the eyepiece of binoculars and modest backyard telescopes.
Come Saturday evening, the moon is roughly 10 degrees above Venus and Mars. But now the two planets are less than one-half degree of one another, with Mars just to Venus’s upper right. Venus shines more than 100 times as bright as Mars, so much so that its light could obscure the red planet, in which case you’ll need those binoculars to discern it. After that, Venus climbs higher into the west and away from Mars.
While Venus and Mars appear together this week, the planets are actually millions of miles apart. Closer to the sun, Venus completes one orbit in roughly 225 days, while Mars makes the loop in 687 days. From our fixed vantage point here on earth — which isn’t really fixed, as we, too, are always in motion around the sun — these planets cross paths several times each year. But with roughly 75 million miles separating the orbital line of one planet from the other, there’s a lot of variance, so a close conjunction like this is pretty rare. Venus and Mars haven’t appeared so close in our sky since 2008, and they won’t again for another two years.
Jupiter is a fixture of the night sky. It appears in the east as twilight fades, and by 11pm it is almost directly overhead. By 5am it is low in the west-northwest and sets just before sunrise.
If you’re up before dawn, look for golden Saturn to the south. It is traveling with the constellation Scorpius, whose return to the skies each year heralds the coming of spring. The red heart of the scorpion, Antares, shines almost as bright as Saturn and less than 10 degrees below and to the left.
The last of the naked-eye planets is just eeking away from the glare of the sun. Look for Mercury just above the east-southeast horizon in early dawn. Binoculars will help you pinpoint it against the glare of the coming sun.
Wednesday’s first-quarter moon shines amid the constellation Taurus the bull and is less than one-half degree from its glaring red eye Aldebaran. Above the moon a little farther are the stars of the Hyades cluster, and higher still those of the Pleiades cluster.
Some of the brightest stars appear during these cold, dark nights. Orion the hunter stands above the southern horizon in the evening, the three stars of his belt pointing up to Taurus and down toward Canis Major and the brightest star, Sirius. Orion’s foot is marked by Rigel, while his shoulder is the red giant Betelgeuse, with Canis Minor and its bright star Procyon to the left. Above these stand the Gemini Twins, Castor the higher and brighter star and Pollux a little below it. Above and to the right of Gemini is Capella, the bright star of Auriga the charioteer, shining directly overhead at 8pm. To the east is Leo the lion and its bright star Regulus.
Just east of Orion is the winter Milky Way, stretching from the southeast to almost directly overhead and then down to the northwest in the early evening.

The waning crescent moon rises ever later in predawn skies this week. Friday it appears before 3am, and by 5am it is well placed above the southeast horizon, forming a tight triangle with golden Saturn to the right and red Antares, the heart of Scorpius, below. The ringed planet stands above the scorpion’s head, one degree of its uppermost, second-magnitude star Graffias.
By Monday the moon is a thin crescent low in the southeast at 6am. If skies are clear and you have an open view of the horizon, you might be able to catch the reappearance of Mercury. Your odds will be better with binoculars. Look to the lower left of the moon’s outside arc. The next morning, the last remnant of the waning crescent rises within an hour of the sun, and now Mercury is just a few degrees to the right of its inner curve.
Mercury never pulls far from the sun and does not climb high into the sky. Plenty of people may not even realize they have seen it when looking at an exceptionally bright “star” hugging the horizon at dawn or during evening twilight.
You shouldn’t be as hard-pressed to spot our neighbors, Venus and Mars in the west-southwest at dusk. The two are only five degrees apart at week’s end, well within the field of view of binoculars or a telescope. By Wednesday they’ve cut the distance by half on the way to a one-half-degree conjunction on the 21st. There’s no confusing the two, as Venus blazes at –3.9 magnitude, while Mars smolders at first magnitude. In the exponential calculus of stellar magnitude, that means that Mars, as bright as your average star, is 99 percent dimmer than the Evening Star.
Jupiter is a fixture of the night sky right now, rising in the east-northeast as twilight fades, almost directly overhead at midnight and clinging to the west-northwest horizon as daybreak approaches. To its right is the dim constellation of Cancer the crab, while to its left is the easy-to-identify Leo the lion.
This week marks the latest installment of the Globe at Night campaign. Its goal is for ordinary people to record and submit their star counts. The target this time around is the constellation Orion, which is high in the south by 8pm. You can download star charts and instructions at www.globeatnight.org. Your results along with thousands from around the world help astronomers measure darkness and raise awareness about the threat of light pollution.

The yellow perch run is on. It may seem early, but small male yellow perch have been caught in a number of locations around the state for over three weeks. That can only mean one thing: The bigger fish will show up any time — if not already.
These yellow neds are on the move, swimming to the headwaters of Bay tributaries to spawn.
Driven by increasing daylight and temperatures, the scent of their natal waters and mysterious Mother Nature, this species is the first of the year to appear in numbers in the fresher water of the Chesapeake.
Minimum size is nine inches and the daily limit is 10 fish per day. They are particularly delicious, rivaling white perch for table quality. Fried and paired with sliced tomatoes, simmered greens and corn bread on the side, they make the finest meal you can serve this time of year.
Light- to medium-weight spin tackle spooled with six- to 10-pound mono will do just fine for tangling with the neds, whose size can run up to 15 inches or more (a citation is 14 inches). They will eat earthworms, bloodworms, grass shrimp, minnows and even wax worms.
With water temperatures this time of year generally under 40 degrees, the fish do not respond well to artificial lures. But when fish abound, they can be caught on shad darts, small Tony and Nungusser spoons, Rooster Tails, Mepps spinners and small jig heads with soft plastic curly tails.
My preference is a five-foot-four-inch, light-action spin rod, six-pound line and a tandem rig with a gold number 12 Tony and a lip-hooked minnow on the long leg and on the shorter a 1/16-ounce shad dart tipped with a grass shrimp, all fished under a weighted bobber.
Casting the rig out toward likely spawning areas such as flooded brush or downed trees in three to four feet of water, I twitch the rig back slowly, continually working over a large area until I locate fish. The bite is generally tide driven, with a falling tide just after the flood the best.
When fishing a low tide, target the deeper areas in the center of creeks and rivers and fish your baits close to the bottom. Since the fish are constantly on the move, you never know when or where you’re going to find them, so moving around and trying one area after another, either from a boat or from shore, is the strategy for success.
It is also a good idea to have on hand a big Mepps spinner in size 3 or 4, silver or gold, dressed with squirrel or bucktail. If your yellow perch action suddenly dies off or hasn’t yet materialized, try casting the larger lure. Quite often a large pickerel or two (which follow the schools of yellow perch this time of year) have moved into the area and queered the perch bite. The Pickerel will be suckers for the big Mepps and an exciting addition to your day.
The Department of Natural Resources website maps a number of locations where yellow perch fish have been caught during the spring run on both the Western and Eastern Shores: http://dnr2.maryland.gov/Fisheries/Pages/maps.aspx.

The new governor of Maryland has made a major error in allowing poultry farmers to continue applying their phosphorus-laden chicken manure on land that is already overloaded with phosphorus.
What the chicken farmers and the governor are ignoring is scientific evidence that clearly identifies excessive levels of phosphorus in soils as the cause for phosphorus-induced trace element deficiencies, lower yields, lower nutrient values and Bay pollution.
The smarter strategy is to grow soybeans one year then corn the next. Legumes like soybeans fix their own nitrogen and leave plenty in the ground to grow a crop of corn the following year. If this rotation were followed, farmers would only need to apply potassium when soil call for it. When the soil needs potassium, it can be added as either potassium chloride or potassium sulfate, both cheaper to apply than tons of chicken manure.
Phosphorus is essential to plant growth. But too much causes other essential plant nutrients to bind to it, starving plant roots. Such essential trace elements as iron, zinc and copper are essential to plant growth, as are nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium.
In the mid 1970s I was asked by fellow University of Maryland faculty members who specialized in vegetable crops to review soil tests from fields of sweet potatoes near Salisbury. The total phosphorus levels in those soils were so high that they were reducing yields. I recommended they stop applying phosphorus and apply only nitrogen. This was a major change in culture for these farmers because they had been accustomed to applying tons of 10-10-10 before planting each season’s crop.
So much phosphorus had been applied that it took several years with none before yields started to increase.
In the early 1980s, rhododendron growers tried dosing their plants with lots of phosphorus to force them into flower under shade. It worked, but it also stunted growth and caused iron deficiency symptoms on the foliage. Full sun alone would have produced healthy tall plants with flowers.
My conclusion from these and other studies is that plants do not need much phosphorus to be productive.
Over-applying phosphorus not only leads to reduced yields and lower nutritional value. It also contributes to Bay pollution.
Allowing farmers to make yearly applications of chicken manure on soils already saturated with phosphorus lowers yields of grain and forage crops. Since most of these farmers do not plant cover crops, their phosphorus-enriched soils erode into the Bay.
There are other better uses for chicken manure, as compost or as a source of energy. The ornamental horticulture industry — the second largest agricultural industry in Maryland and the nation — is a ready market for quality compost. Yet Maryland has to import compost from as far as Maine to meet its needs. Maryland Environmental Services is well versed in the science and technology of making compost.
Gov. Hogan, please encourage chicken farmers to form a co-op to manufacture and market compost.

Ask Dr. Gouin your questions at DR.FRGouin@gmail.com. Please include your name and address.

The waning gibbous moon rises around 8pm Thursday, with Jupiter high above it. Between them is the blue-white star Regulus of Leo the lion. Sunday the moon rises around 11pm, with the white star Spica 10 degrees beneath it. As daybreak approaches Monday morning, the two are even closer together high in the southwest. That evening the moon rises just before midnight, and now it is the one trailing Spica. Before dawn Thursday the 12th, the now-crescent moon shines within 10 degrees of golden Saturn, with Antares, the red heart of Scorpius, a little farther toward the horizon.
The waning moon leaves the evening sky bereft of its powerful glow, making these next two weeks your best chance to spot Comet Lovejoy before it’s gone forever — or at least the next eight thousand years. The fifth magnitude comet hovers at the border of naked-eye visibility between the constellations Perseus and Andromeda.
Binoculars will bring it into view as a faint, oblong smudge, while even a modest telescope will reveal its brighter coma and trailing tail. You might even be able to discern the green-glowing head of the comet and its blue-hued tail. These colors are a tell-tale sign of the comet’s molecular composition, the green from diatomic carbon and the blue from carbon monoxide, both being charged by interstellar ultraviolet radiation. In contrast, naked-eye comets appear white, a result of sunlight reflecting off particles of dust and debris.
Technically titled C/2014 Q2, the comet is named after amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy, of Australia, who discovered it last August. Lovejoy has identified four earlier comets.
Night by night, Comet Lovejoy is inching north, from the feet of Andromeda toward the outstretched arm of Perseus. By this time next month it will be one, if not two, magnitudes dimmer and much harder to find as it heads to the outer solar system.
Closer to home, Venus and Mars hover above the west-southwest horizon at twilight on their way to a fabulous conjunction later this month. They are maybe a half-dozen degrees apart this weekend, the size of your fist held at arm’s length. And Jupiter shines from sunset to sunrise.